Burn After Reading
Directed by the Coen brothers
5/10
The movie was boring. I was fidgety, uninterested, and unimpressed. The biggest laugh I got out of this “dark comedy” was shared by the only other pervert in the theatre when the “Liberator” made a guest appearance. Of course the darkest of minds laughed the hardest at the worst joke in the film. The story had a lot of promise but just didn’t develop very well, and the box office results show it. It barely made more than another movie that opened the same weekend by the name of Tyler Perry’s The Family that Preys. Tyler Perry’s film actually earned more than the Coen Bros on a theatre to theatre average. How many of you actually know what that one is even about?
Burn After Reading starts with a CIA agent who loses his job and then decides to write a book about his life’s work. Next enters the goof troop who discover a digital copy of the book in progress, think the files are top secret information, and attempt to blackmail the agent. The Coen brothers did a lot with that premise, but in this intern’s lowly opinion, they didn’t do the right thing. The movie really picks up with about twenty minutes left to go. The first hour and ten minutes seem like the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy box set WITH deleted scenes.
This movie really anchored on the big name actors it acquired. The actors themselves actually did do a lot with a little, and from such stars you wouldn’t expect anything less. Without them this movie would have been straight to video, which is what you should wait for.
Sean Pullin